Purpose – With Industry 4.0 and the extensive rise of smart technologies, we are seeing remarkable transformations in work practices and workplaces. Scholars report the phenomenal progress of smart technologies. At the same time, we can hear the rhetoric emphasising their potential threats. This study focusses on how and where intelligent machines are leveraged in the workplace, how humans co-working with intelligent machines are affected and what they believe can be done to mitigate the risks of the increased use of intelligent machines.
Design/methodology/approach – We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 respondents working in various leadership capacities associated with intelligent machines and technologies. Using NVivo, we coded and churned out the themes from the qualitative data collected.
Findings – This study shows how intelligent machines are leveraged across different industries, ranging from chatbots, intelligent sensors, cognitive systems and computer vision to the replica of the entire human being. They are used end-to-end in the value chain, increasing productivity, complementing human workers’ skillsets and augmenting decisions made by human workers. Human workers experience a blend of positive and negative emotions whilst co-working with intelligent machines, which influences their job satisfaction level. Organisations adopt several anticipatory strategies, like transforming into a learning organisation, identifying futuristic technologies and upskilling their human workers, regularly conducting social learning events and designing accelerated career paths to embrace intelligent technologies.
Originality/value – This study seeks to understand the emotional and practical implications of the use of intelligent machines by humans and how both entities can integrate and complement each other. These insights can help organisations and employees understand what future workplaces and practices will look like and how to remain relevant in this transformation.

Purpose – The article explores the linkages between the type of environmental strategy (ES), the use of internal communication (IC), and the greening of organizational culture (OC). Moreover, the article empirically examines whether company size matters in the use of environmental IC practices in the green context. Additionally, the article considers differences between people employed at different organizational hierarchy levels. The basis for such a comparison is their opinions about the effectiveness of communication practices. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical research employed a survey method done on 199 organizations in 2020. Statistical analyses used the chi-squared test, Kendall’s Tau-b correlation coefficient, and the Mann–Whitney U test.
Findings – The research showed that companies with a proactive green strategy more often use different communication practices related to ES and have a greener culture. The study proved that larger companies more often use the analyzed communication practices. However, we found no significant difference in opinion between middle managers and line employees about the effectiveness of these practices.
Practical implications – The main contribution to business practice is the exploratory model based on the empirical study, which allows organizations to successfully implement the ES.
Originality/value – Studies rarely combine the three organizational elements: IC, OC, and ES. This article provides new empirical evidence on relationships between features of OC, green strategy types, and communication practices.

Purpose – I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.
Design/methodology/approach – To collect data, a survey among 500 Polish manufacturing companies was conducted. I used quantitative methods (structural equation modeling) to test several research hypotheses referring to a single supplier–customer relationship. Thanks to the use of multi-construct measurement of SIPD and supplier relationship resilience, the study provides detailed research results on the topic.
Findings – Collaborative practices implemented during SIPD increase procurement flexibility and decrease redundancy in the relationship with the involved supplier. Communication during SIPD increases supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Increased supplier flexibility and increased procurement flexibility in the relationship with the involved supplier as well as collaborative practices during SIPD positively impact company performance. I confirmed the indirect effect between communication during SIPD and company performance when the mediators are supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Decreased redundancy in relationship with involved supplier does not impact company performance.
Practical implications – Supply chain managers need to rethink SIPD practice to effectively ensure supply chain resilience (SCRES), especially in the face of the contemporary global crisis and black swans affecting the supplier base. My article provides important managerial insights into drivers of SCRES and company performance. Originality/value – To the best of my knowledge, this research is among the first to conclude that SIPD does not have an unequivocally positive or direct impact on supplier relationship resilience. The research fills the gap by analyzing the impact of SIPD on two main SCRES elements. The study examines supplier relationship resilience, understood as flexibility and redundancy elements, in a single supplier–buyer relationship perspective. Thus, the presented considerations go beyond the traditional understanding of flexibility and redundancy in supplier relationship management, that is through the prism of double or multi sourcing and having back up-suppliers.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was identification and empirical assessment of the differentiation of consumers’ attitudes in Ukraine and Poland to Russian brands and other brands offered on the Russian market after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Design/methodology/approach – The main research methods include a systematic literature review and the authors’ own surveys conducted in November 2022. The research sample comprised 950 consumers – 67%of them were Poles, 30% – Ukrainians and 3% from other countries.
Findings – A respondents’ country (Poland and Ukraine) does not impact attitudes to brands offered on the Russian market after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Moreover, it does not affect and differentiate emotional engagement in the conflict and assistance to war victims. Cluster analysis resulted in identifying two groups on the basis of consumers’ declared emotional reactions to the war. The first group was smaller (N 5 353, 37.2%), referred to as “indifferent consumers”, and was characterized by a greater inclination to purchase brands offered in Russia. The other cluster, referred to as “sensitive consumers” (N 5 597, 62.8%), comprises those engaged in offering assistance to war victims, showing strong emotions in connection with the aggression and military activities and characterized by a clearly negative attitude to Russian and other offered brands and an inclination to boycott these brands.
Research limitations/implications – A short time horizon, the study confined to two countries, difficulties in reaching Ukrainian respondents due to power failures in Ukraine in the period of conducting the survey (November 2022), a non-representative research sample – overrepresentation of people aged 18–25 years. Practical implications – The research study contributes to the knowledge about consumer brand attitudes and preferences under unique social, economic and market conditions. These conditions were created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as the international and global character of the war in Ukraine. The significant implications of the study refer to brand communication policies and companies’ CSR-related declarations. A number of consumers’ errors were recorded, resulting from wrong brand retrieval, which were rectified at a later stage as a result of international restrictions imposed on Russia, harsh media criticism and social international embargoes imposed on brands offered in Russia. The marketing communication of contemporary global brands should give consideration to the informative function of CSR activities, and the communication process should be continuous. Critical attitudes and an inclination to boycott brands point to the possible consequences faced by inconsistent and ethically doubtful brand policies. This implication is clearly confirmed by the results of the study.
Social implications – The authors also wish to highlight the implications for practice and society. As mentioned earlier, Polish consumers involved in providing aid to victims of the war also expressed their opposition to the war by boycotting Russian products and international brands remaining in Russia. Popularization of the research results obtained by the authors can be a form of sensitizing the public to the need for long-term relief, awakening global awareness of the essence and importance of sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as the possibility of expressing opposition through individual purchasing decisions and boycotting brands still present in Russia.
Originality/value – The study allowed for identifying consumers’ differentiated brand attitudes in two countries: a country inflicted by war (Ukraine) and a front-line country, strongly supporting Ukraine (Poland). The research contributes to consumer behavior theories and studies of consumer attitudes and preferences from the perspective of international corporations’ CSR activities under the unique conditions of war. Also, it contributes to the knowledge of the mechanism of forming attitudes to Russian and international brands offered in Russia among CEE consumers.

Purpose – Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach – Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.
Findings – We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.
Research limitations/implications – In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.
Originality/value – We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.

Purpose – Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have already noticed the tangible benefits offered by artificial intelligence (AI). Several approaches have been proposed with a view to support them in the processes entailed in this innovation path. These include multisided platforms created to enable the connection between SMEs and AI developers, making it easier for them to network each other. While such platforms are complex, they facilitate simultaneous interaction with several stakeholders and reaching out to new potential users (both SMEs and AI developers), through a collaboration with supporting ecosystems such as digital innovation hubs (DIHs).
Design/methodology/approach – Mixed methods were used. The literature review was performed to identify the existing approaches within and outside the manufacturing domain. Computer-assisted telephonic (in-depth) interviewing , was conducted to include perspectives of AI platform stakeholders and collect primary data from various European countries.
Findings – Several challenges and barriers for AI platform stakeholders were identified alongside the corresponding best practices and guidelines on how to address them.
Originality/value – An effective approach was proposed to provide support to the industrial platform managers in this field, by developing guidelines and best practices on how a platform should build its services to support the ecosystem.

Purpose: The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of people and organizations, including supply chains (SC). Therefore, this study aims to explore concepts, methods, and tools for managing SC during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Methodology: The main research methods were systematic and grey literature reviews, supported by 5W2H and 20/80 methods.

Findings: Three research gaps were identified, supported by concepts, methods, and tools for managing SC during the Covid-19 pandemic with other related findings.

Limitations: Short research horizon because the Covid-19 pandemic started two years ago, which precluded us from performing full results verification.

Implications: This study updates and enriches supply chain management theories, especially regarding resiliency, disruption, and risk SC management. One of the fifteen research criteria was related to applied concepts, methods, and tools, which thus can be used by SC managers to implement them into practice.

Originality/Value: Compared to the literature review, a systematic literature review is performed according to a structured procedure. This comprehensive study will enable researchers/managers to understand the problem and prepare measures against the pandemic in SC.

Purpose: This study aims to verify the quality of the teacher competency inventory as a pedagogical competencies measure of teachers in higher education institutions.

Design methodology: The development and testing of the teacher competency inventory covered three phases: (1) item generation, (2) dimension identification and data reduction (factor analysis), and (3) scale evaluation. The current study tests its construct validity, using an independent samples t-test, variance analysis, and Anova in two different environments.

Findings: Results indicate that the inventory measures unitary constructs and provide its predictive capacity. The developed instrument measures levels of future-oriented pedagogical competencies with comparable reliability and validity.

Practical implications: Teacher competency inventory may be applied to teachers’ recruitment, selection, development, and performance evaluation with the goal to identify current and required levels of competencies. The inventory allows one to compare teacher competencies with the expected competency profile. Possible differences may indicate deficits or overruns in relation to the expected profile.

Originality: Teacher competency inventory is a meaningful tool to improve human resource practices – including recruitment, selection, and teacher performance monitoring – and to indicate the current and required level of competencies. The identified competency gap can help plan teacher development to increase job performance.

Purpose: Revenue management (RM) practices are well established in the hotel industry. Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation is a distinctive alternative to hotels, which in its original intention, is managed by non-professionals. The main research question of this study was how the professionalism of P2P accommodation providers relate to their use of RM practices.

Research method: I performed statistical analysis of 479,282 pricing records for 25,827 properties offered through Airbnb in the period of 67 months (August 2015 – February 2021) in Poland. Two indicators of hosts’ professionalism (the number of properties they manage and the possession of superhost status) were tested against three RM practices (cancellation policy, minimum stay, and dynamic pricing).

Findings: This study clearly showed the intensification of P2P hosts’ professionalization in comparison to previous research. Moreover, it proved that professional and non-professional hosts’ behaviors significantly differ when it comes to RM practices application, but the discrepancies are not equally distinctive. The finding that brought a considerably different result in comparison to previous research was the negative relationship between a multi-unit host and minimum stay.

Implications and future research: This study should serve as a warning for hoteliers about the P2P hosts’ professionalization, as they become equal competitors. There are several future extensions to this study, including holiday destinations, testing other than hosts’ professionalism variables, or shedding light on the evolution of RM practices application could reveal valuable insights.

Originality: This study contributes to the existing research by offering the analysis of very recent longitudinal data and covering professional vs. non-professional P2P hosts’ behaviors in terms of three RM practices in Central-Eastern Europe settings.

Purpose: The present study investigates the survival and success of new organizations in the light of complex network theory.

Methodology: The empirical data was collected using the survey method from the technology park companies are analyzed with social network analysis. Two main methods were used in this study: descriptive statistics and social network analysis.

Findings: The findings indicate that new nodes appearing because of splitting up of bigger nodes from present or other related networks have a higher degree of centrality. In practice, this means that companies founded by former members of large-scale companies from these networks are more successful due to the ease in providing the flow of resources and information through previous links. This suggests that the imprint effect can be observed in the appearance, lifecycle, and performance of new nodes in complex networks.

Originality: The literature lacks studies on new organizations’ lifecycle in complex networks despite the existence of studies about new organizations in organizational networks. This study examines the appearance, success, and survival of new organizations in networks by complex network approaches such as dynamism, dissipative structures, and uncertainties.

Purpose: This study aims to provide an empirical study of the factors that influence how companies engage in strategic philanthropy and philanthropic strategy.

Methodology: A target group of Czech companies engaged in corporate philanthropy was contacted with an e-mail containing a hyperlink to an online questionnaire. In total, 296 companies participated in the study. Secondary data was collected from the Albertina database, Anopress IT database, and 2016–2018 annual reports. Logistic regression and likelihood-ratio tests were used to analyze the data.

Findings: The results imply that company size, ownership, industry, slack resources, and visibility are predictors of philanthropic strategy. Company size and headquarters’ location are predictors of strategic philanthropy. The legitimacy strategy and slack resource theory may explain engagement in philanthropic strategy, but not in strategic philanthropy.

Originality: This study contributes to scarce research addressing the drivers of the strategic approach to philanthropy. It provides a comprehensive empirical study of the factors influencing strategic philanthropic practices in the Czech Republic.

Purpose: This article aims to assess strategy and technology as key drivers of Greek businesses’cdigital transformation and compare the results to those of international studies and sources.

Methodology: A research was conducted on 124 Greek businesses from different sectors and industries with the use of an anonymous questionnaire from December 2019 to January 2020. Greek businesses were categorized as early, developing, and maturing according to their perceptions about the level of their digital maturity, and differences were identified. The results were finally compared to an international relevant survey.

Findings: Several differences were located among the Greek businesses of the three digital maturity categories as formulated after their self-evaluation, and evolution has been identified on their perceptions about their digital strategy, its existence, objectives, and structure, which can be seen developing and expanding from the lowest to the highest levels of digital maturity.

Originality: The findings can be useful in creating an initial picture of the perceptions and practices applied by Greek businesses to their use of digital technologies. They can also become a measure of comparison for the self-evaluation of Greek businesses in their efforts to digitally transform.

Purpose: The article presents business models developed in organizations of the “new cooperativism” trend, whose application leads to a bottom-up solution of important social problems at the local level and, in a broader perspective, stimulation of sustainable development.

Methodology: The adopted methodology uses a qualitative approach. The research was conducted in the form of case studies of four organizations following “new cooperativism,” based on in-depth interviews, observations, and analyses of organizational documents and various types of publicly available materials.

Findings: The study showed that “new cooperativism” organizations use in their business models the old practices developed by classical cooperatives, which work well in today’s conditions and have the potential to provide a positive impact on important socioeconomic dysfunctions, which can be fully implemented through modern technologies.

Research Limitations: The limitations typical of the case study method entail the uncertainty of results replication, which disallows their broad generalization. However, the obtained results indicate the need to conduct a scientific diagnosis of emerging collaborative grassroots organizations and the importance of their participation in the three-sector economic concept of the state.

Originality: The article and its conclusions are based on empirical research of the practical effectiveness of business models used in organizations of the “new cooperativism” trend.

Purpose: The scientifc purpose of the study is an attempted synthesis of interpretation of “the virtual economy” and “the virtual environment” in the Polish and foreign literature on the subject. The cognitive purpose thereof is to offer an identifcation and a qualitative analysis of the factors that determine the development of e-entrepreneurship using an example of business practice. Methodology: The theoretical basis of the study is a scientifc research of leading scholars on the theory of entrepreneurship in the context of virtual economy. An exploratory, qualitative case study methodology has been applied for the purpose thereof. The research has been conducted using the example of Currency One SA, operating on the currency exchange market in virtual economy. The application of the empirical method of a case study has made it possible to characterize the essence of e-entrepreneurship and present the studied phenomenon in business practice. Findings: Research results reveal an existence of interdependencies between the intellectual potential of staff members and the market success of a company. Explanation of the critical success factors, showing the implementation of innovative ICT solutions and stages of company development, illustrates how the existing theory is experienced by practitioners in virtual economy. Furthermore, the paper confrms the positive impact of e-entrepreneurship on the effectiveness of the company subject to analysis, and presents virtual economy as a completely new sphere through which it is possible to offer new products and services. Research implications: The rationale for conducting research on case studies is the need to orient the practice towards a better understanding of modern economic reality. The study may provide a starting point for empirical quantitative research, as well as act as a contribution to the discussion on entrepreneurship in the rapidly changing virtual economy. Originality: This paper comprises not only a set of notions related to and the concept of e-business models, but also offers new arguments in the discussion on the framework for entrepreneurship in virtual economy. The conducted research is an original attempt to explain the essence of the studied phenomenon and to illustrate its progress in a changing business environment.

Purpose: The paper describes the functioning of the RIA system in New Zealand using the analogy
of RIA and the evaluation of public interventions. Presented solutions can provide inspiration for
the Polish government in the process of improving the quality and extent of the use of RIA.

Methodology: The analysis is based on a review of government documents and literature, as well
as individual interviews and correspondence with representatives of the government of NZ.

Conclusions: The RIA system in NZ is not error-free and its shortcomings include inter alia the
lack of solutions with respect to ex-post analysis and insufficiently rigorous methodological
approach. At the same time, a number of solutions can be regarded as good practice, e.g.: regular
external quality reviews of RIS, obligation to supplement each RIS with ‘quality assessment’ and
a ‘disclosure statement’ outlining their credibility and utility.

Practical implications: The presented strengths of the RIA system in NZ may serve as an inspiration
for modifying the RIA system in Poland.

Originality: The RIA system is presented through the prism of the model of evaluation use, which
is a related tool of collecting information about non-regulatory interventions.

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to describe concepts and assumptions of predictive marketing analytics in reference to decision making. In particular, we highlight issues pertaining to the importance of data and the modern approach to data analysis and processing with the purpose of solving real marketing problems that companies encounter in business.

Methodology: In this paper authors provide two study cases showing how, and to what extent predictive marketing analytics work can be useful in practice e.g., investigation of the marketing environment. The two cases are based on organizations operating mainly on Web site domain. The fi rst part of this article, begins a discussion with the explanation of a general idea of predictive marketing analytics. The second part runs through opportunities
it creates for companies in the process of building strong competitive advantage in the market. The paper article ends with a brief comparison of predictive analytics versus traditional marketing-mix analysis.

Findings: Analytics play an extremely important role in the current process of business management based on planning, organizing, implementing and controlling marketing activities. Predictive analytics provides the actual and current picture of the external environment. They also explain what problems are faced with the company in business activities. Analytics tailor marketing solutions to the right time and place at minimum costs. In fact they control the effi ciency and simultaneously increases the effectiveness of the firm.

Practical implications: Based on the study cases comparing two enterprises carrying business activities in different areas, one can say that predictive analytics has far more been embraces extensively than classical marketing-mix analyses. The predictive approach yields greater speed of data collection and analysis, stronger predictive accuracy, better obtained competitor data, and more transparent models where one can understand the inner working of the model.

Originality: Authors describe the importance of analytics which enhance the decisions that the company makes as it executes strategies and plans, so that the company can be more effective and achieve better results. The key factor that enables to execute marketing strategies accurately and build competitive advantage in the future includes predictive modeling. The ability to predict probable futures allows us to shape the future, rather than
merely survive whatever it brings.

Purpose: The essay aims at identifying the role of local government in supporting R&D efforts and knowledge transfer mechanisms and diffusion practices within the biotechnology clusters in the Flanders and Wallonia regions (local knowledge exchange and learning), as well as the role of informal interaction between the cluster actors.

Methodology: The main research method chosen for this study was qualitative analysis,
based on interviews with a series of researchers, academic scientists and technology
transfer officers from the Flanders and Wallonia regions. This was undertaken in September-October 2011 as a part of the COST/STRIKE initiative of the European Commission.

Findings: The high patent dynamics within the biotechnology sector is explained
by growing investments into R&D, highly qualified human capital, and geographical
factors such as cluster development. The answers of interviewed experts confirm
the view that the importance of geography should differ by technology type. The importance grows quickly for technologies undergoing radical innovations. Regional policy should therefore focus on promoting innovation through R&D support, improving the quality of human capital and the overall business environment (cluster).